He subsequently won a
sizarship to Trinity College Dublin. He was
elected a Scholar in his first year at Trinity, having become an undergraduate in October 1928. He also served as auditor of the College Classical Society. He was editor of
TCD: A College Miscellany in Hilary term of 1931. He became a Fellow in 1934 and was one of the last Fellows to be elected by examination. Stanford was one of seven candidates nominated for the
Provostship of the Trinity College on 11 March 1952 but was eliminated along with two other candidates in the first round of the election. He was considered, at the age of 42, to be too junior. The successful candidate on that occasion was the mathematician,
Albert Joseph McConnell, who remained in office for 22 years. Stanford established himself as a
Greek scholar in his twenties with the publication of two books which approached Greek literature as a subject for literary criticism,
Greek Metaphor and
Ambiguity in Greek Literature. He is perhaps best remembered for his commentaries aimed at students on
Homer's Odyssey,
Aristophanes' Frogs, and
Sophocles' Ajax. In 1965, Stanford gave the Sather Lectures at the
University of California, Berkeley, on the topic of the pronunciation of Ancient Greek. The lectures were revised into a book published in 1967. Stanford had a particular interest in the classical tradition, in Ireland and elsewhere, and published a number of articles on this topic in the Trinity journal
Hermathena, as well as a wide-ranging book entitled
Ireland and the Classical Tradition. A long-time member of the
Royal Irish Academy, Stanford was appointed chairman of the
Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies by the
President of Ireland,
Éamon de Valera. Stanford's poetry appears in several anthologies and his posthumously published memoirs. After Stanford's death, a series of lectures in his honour was established at Trinity College, Dublin. The first lecturer in the series was Duncan F. Kennedy, a former student of Stanford's. ==Seanad career==